© Kevin Rabalais
Karen Carpenter
skeleton-woman —
i am sorry.
*
the clock has left you,
your eyeballs empty pits
where the light goes in.
*
you are
cracked marble, fissured obsidian,
a network of crisscrosses broken,
and you should be whole, brimming
*
a round-faced moon,
a silver silken shadower, night
cast about you, woven around you,
breathing so full of life, wonder and
delicate powdery moths,
a sweet scent on the breeze
of the perfume even, now, you wear
in the other version of your story
*
the one where the postman waited, stopped,
produced the sacred letter.
where 1983 came and went freely.
where you ballooned into comfortable, wealthy old age,
*
another version of your story,
star-woman,
where you survived it all
and were radiant in your survival
*
Glanville Terrace
the rich walk their manicured dogs in Parnell
underneath the magnolias and topiaries
electric gates swing open as if for ghosts
and in the silence
staunch bungalows correct their posture
against the peachy morning sky
*
the clouds are only skim foam on god’s latte
smeared wide by godly sip,
all composure, our only sky
is the one he delegates us
*
and below it
the dogwalkers trot pleasantly
on springloaded sneakers
as if treading on cloud
*
and I, barefoot,
in the centre of the road,
the ghost of sickness;
*
gowned, a ragged stick shape,
viewing the dawn with clinical eyes,
dissecting myself into the tarseal, leaving
*
fine jewels of bright blood shining
on the pampered grass verges
*
Kim
How easily you go.
*
Swallow the black pill
make your eyes demon eyes,
dilate them, disappear from behind them,
leave only a shell
*
a husk of your skin,
who walks as you walk
seems as you seem
and is not.
*
Tell me,
what inside you snapped this time?
Which creature claws at your heart?
Which lies, now, does the sea-witch whisper you?
*
Tell me,
have you heard them before?
*
It has been so many years
of listening to them, of grabbing hold
and not even one
of letting go —
*
Forgive yourself.
*
Surrender to being better
and laugh open the dawn.
